Jul 10, 2020

Today, global standards developerASTM International announced the publication of a new technical report on aviation. The report, “Developmental Pillars of Increased Autonomy for Aircraft Systems”, was developed by ASTM’s autonomy design and operations in aviation administrative committee (AC377).

The new report is intended to promote the sound application of technical best practices to increase aviation autonomy for the purpose of increasing safety, precision, and availability for manned and unmanned aircraft. The target audience for the report includes those developing automated and autonomous systems for aviation, consensus standards bodies, and regulators, with the goal of providing a technical foundation for the development and evaluation of these advanced systems.

“The goal of this report is to capture several pillars of complex system development that must be considered when engineering increased automation for aviation,” says Dr. Loyd Hook, Engineering Professor at the University of Tulsa... “These pillars take the form of six interrelated topic areas in development assurance, modularity and partitioning, dynamic consistency checking, operational considerations and the human role, fail functional design, and run-time assurance.”

Hook, who led the group that produced the report, notes that the pillars are well-understood and robust principles in the areas of system architecture, dynamic functionality, and development processes that have been applied by avionics and aviation system designers and researchers for many years. 

This is the second technical report from the administrative committee, which is comprised of members from ASTM International’s committees on light sport aircraft (F37), unmanned aircraft systems (F38), aircraft systems (F39), and general aviation aircraft (F44), as well as contributors from academia and government.

To access the report, click here.  

Media Inquiries: Dan Bergels, tel +1.610.832.9602; dbergels@astm.org

Release #11054

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